Case Update (3 March 2026): In re. SS & LS; expert’s views on risk of child abduction not persuasive, and report is not a material change in circumstances

The parties are parents to two children. The West Virginia DHS initiated abuse and neglect proceedings against the parents in April 2023. The court, in adjudicating the parents as abusive and/or neglectful, gave them an improvement period. After the period passed, the court dismissed the matter and “restored the parties to a fifty-fifty custodial schedule.” At this time, the court noted the Father’s concern about the Mother’s desire to travel with the children to her home country of the Philippines to see her family. The court ordered the parents to “not engage in international travel with the children until the children’s next birthdays; and that any international travel shall require providing the other parent with all dates, locations, flights, accommodations, itineraries, and persons involved prior to departure.” The Father did not appeal from this order. However, about nine months later, he filed a motion to modify that order, and presented an expert report, based entirely on his representations to the expert, without the expert having spoken with the Mother. The expert report reached certain conclusions as to the risk that the Mother presented on abducting her children to the Philippines, noting it was “relatively high” and the expert “did not see … a real need or benefit from visiting the Philippines.” The report noted the lack of legal remedies available to the Father if the Mother were to retain the children in the Philippines, and the Mother’s ability to unilaterally seek and secure Filipino passports for the children without the Father’s knowledge. The Mother, in response, proffered that she would never abduct the children, wanted the children to visit her family, and that she was working towards becoming a U.S. citizen. The Father, in his Motion to Modify, argued that the report and its contents were a material change in circumstances, the threshold finding to permit a modification. The child had a Guardian appointed, who acknowledged that there was no substantial change in circumstance to warrant a modification.

The court declined to modify the order. While the court noted the Father’s concerns, and also noted that it was not saying the expert was wrong about the law, it did not find a material or substantial change in circumstances, and that the prior order included certain provisions that already addressed the Father’s concerns, which were shared at the time of that order, with regard to travel to the Philippines. The court had considered evidence when making its ruling, and ultimately found no risk of abduction to the children.

The Father appealed, and the Supreme Court of Appeals found no reversible error. The order denying the Father’s motion to modify was affirmed.

A few quick notes - the SCA found no material change in circumstance. In other words, when the Father was concerned about child abduction in the first instance, the court was not persuaded he gets another bite of the apple simply by later producing a report from an expert that could have been produced in the first trial. Separately, the SCA used careful wording - it didn’t debate the expert’s statements on the law. It did, however, find that the expert’s report did not make out a persuasive argument that the Mother was going to abduct. A lack of law between the U.S. and another country is often insufficient to support the most stringent abduction prevention measures - no travel, supervised access, etc. - without some indication that the parent is one who would abduct their child. Here, the court noted that the expert did not speak with the Mother. Finally, the court did say it would include language affirming the child’s home state as WV and habitual residence as the USA. These statements are only so good as the date of the order. Circumstances change, and simply because those statements are memorialized in this order on this date, does not mean they will remain the parties’ situation going forward. The Uniform Law Commission put forth a commentary that touched upon this and other issues at the intersection of a custody case and a child abduction case.